Pat Moylan (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, to the House. I am calling on the Minister for Finance to take urgent action to alleviate the serious financial losses incurred by farmers in the Shannon callows area of County Offaly following the flooding of their farmland. In the past, when problems arose in other parts of the country, aid schemes were administered by the OPW.

Some of the television coverage of the flooding was not appropriate. Cattle were depicted as standing in water but farmers in my area would turn their livestock to the roads in preference to leaving them in water. I do not doubt that farmers would refute allegations that they left cattle to stand in water. The only option open to many of them when their lands flooded was to put their stock on uplands intended for hay or silage. These farmers will face real hardships later this year because of the loss of these crops. The Department of Finance should instruct Teagasc to determine who exactly has been affected because farmers who cut hay and silage later in the year will not suffer as much as farmers whose grazing lands were completely flooded and who had no option but to move sheep and cattle elsewhere.

I am aware that the Shannon will never be drained because, if a Minister made any suggestion to that effect, environmentalists would dig in along the side of the river to stop the project. Substantial amounts of money have been spent in the callows to preserve corncrakes but these birds were also affected by the flooding. Farmers and their livelihoods must come first.

While I refer this evening to County Offaly, counties Roscommon, Galway, Westmeath and other low-lying areas of the Shannon basin have also been affected. Nonetheless, the farmers I represent in west County Offaly face particular difficulties.

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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I am replying to this Adjournment debate on behalf of the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon, who is unable to attend the House due to another commitment. The Minister of State has asked me to apologise for his unavoidable absence.

The Shannon is the longest river in Ireland and one of the largest in western Europe. The river drains a catchment of 14,700 sq km to the Shannon Estuary, approximately one fifth the area of Ireland. It is characterised by relatively steep upper and lower sections and a flatter gradient through its middle reach from Lough Ree to Lough Derg. The low-lying lands surrounding the Shannon, the callows, have experienced regular flooding for centuries, particularly along theriver's middle sections.

The Minister of State and his officials in the OPW are aware of the current level of flooding in the Shannon callows. While winter and occasional summer flooding are features of the callows, severe flooding of the kind currently experienced is not. The recent exceptional flooding is due to May's unusually heavy rainfall. This month may prove to have the highest recorded rainfall for the month of May.

The question of possible compensation for financial losses incurred by farmers as a result of flooding is primarily a matter for the Department of Agriculture and Food. While it is true that the OPW was involved in recent years in overseeing a number of humanitarian aid schemes administered by the Irish Red Cross in the aftermath of severe flooding, these schemes were only introduced on foot of Government decisions in instances where the damage was particularly severe and widespread. The schemes were humanitarian in nature and designed to relieve hardship. They were not compensation for losses. While some of the earlier schemes provided assistance where hardship resulted from damage to businesses and farm buildings, provision of aid in more recent schemes was restricted to hardship resulting from damage to homes only.

The OPW no longer has any responsibility for such Government approved humanitarian aid schemes. This function has been transferred to the Department of Social and Family Affairs, following the recommendations of the interdepartmental flood policy review group. The Government approved the implementation of the group's recommendations in September 2004. The group recommended that the provision of emergency assistance in the aftermath of serious flooding should be limited to situations in which damage has occurred to homes and should be administered by the community welfare services of the regional health boards in conjunction with local community and voluntary groups and non-governmental organisations.

The Office of Public Works has no responsibility for the maintenance of the River Shannon. It would be open to the commissioners, under the provisions of the Arterial Drainage Act 1945 and the Arterial Drainage (Amendment) Act 1995, to prepare a scheme to prevent or substantially reduce flooding in an area. The possibility of undertaking an arterial drainage scheme for the Shannon has been considered on a number of occasions but has been ruled out on economic and environmental grounds.

In 2003, the Commissioners of Public Works undertook a further preliminary assessment of the Shannon flood problem by reviewing the conclusions of previous reports in light of the changes that had occurred to the catchment in the intervening 40 years. The review considered a variety of issues, including conditions and competing uses of the river; perceived changes in climate patterns; changes to agricultural regulations and practices; different economic circumstances for agriculture and other industries; the higher values being placed on environmental and heritage assets; and tourism opportunities, to establish whether a more detailed study might identify viable options to alleviate the flooding problem. It recommended that a pre-feasibility study of possible flood risk management opportunities should be undertaken. That study was completed in late 2004. Copies were given to the stakeholders.